If you've got the money to spend, the Nvidia GeForce GTX 780 Ti graphics card offers a great overall experience in mainstream gaming.

With the GeForce GTX 780 Ti ($699.99), Nvidia aims to reclaim the graphics performance crown from rival AMD. Whether you think it succeeds in doing so is going to depend on what you prioritize in a graphics card.

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Features
The GTX 780 Ti is based on the same GK110 GPU as the Nvidia GeForce GTX 780 and Nvidia GeForce GTX Titan. In the past, both of those cards had some of their onboard GPU cores disabled. While the GK110 packs up to 2,880 cores, the Nvidia Titan has 2,688 of those cores enabled, while the Nvidia GTX 780 has 2,304. The GTX 780 Ti is the first GK110-based card to ship with all 2,880 processors enabled. Base and Turbo Boost clocks are also higher than those of the Nvidia Titan; that GPU is clocked at 836MHz base and 876MHz Turbo. The GTX 780 Ti, in contrast, clocks in at 875MHz base and 928MHz Turbo. That's an increase of 4 to 6 percent over the Nvidia Titan, but given that the GTX 780 Ti also includes 7 percent more GPU cores, the overall performance improvement should be 10 to 12 percent over the latter.

There are two features that the Nvidia GTX Titan offers, however, that the GTX 780 Ti doesn't match. First is its double-precision floating-point performance. Normally, you have to buy an Nvidia workstation card to see full double-precision performanceits desktop cards are only allowed to execute DP code at 1/16 the speed. The Nvidia Titan is the exception, and neither the Nvidia GTX 780 nor GTX 780 Ti have it. The second missing element is the 6GB frame buffer that Titan offersto date, the most RAM of any shipping consumer GPU.

We suspect, however, that this is not much of an omission. If you're playing at 1,920 by 1,080, the average game will use 1GB to 1.5GB at most. If you're gaming across three to six monitors or playing on a single 4K display, then RAM use will correspondingly increase. Tests show that these resolutions can chew through 2GB to 3GB of RAM, which means the GTX 780 Ti's 3GB frame buffer is going to be more than adequate for almost any title, even in 4K.

Performance
Against the Nvidia GTX 780, the GTX 780 Ti is on firmer ground. It has 25 percent more cores than its predecessor, even if it clocks them a touch slower.

We pitted the GTX 780 Ti against its Nvidia counterpart, as well as the AMD Radeon R9 290 and AMD Radeon R9 290X. All the cards were tested on an Intel DZ77GA-70K motherboard with an Intel Core i7-3770K CPU and 8GB of DDR3-1600. Windows 7 64-bit w/ SP1 and all available patches was used. All games were tested in 1,920-by-1,080 resolution, with maximum detail settings and 8xMSAA enabled, save where noted otherwise.

In Civilization V, the GTX 780 Ti hit 110 frames per second (fps) in the Late Game View benchmark test, compared with an even 100fps for the Nvidia GTX 780 and 98fps for both the AMD R9 290 and AMD R9 290X. Civilization V isn't a particularly taxing game these days, but it remains one of the most popular strategy titles on the market. In the real-time stategy (RTS) game Shogun 2: Total War, the GTX 780 Ti was 10 percent faster than the Nvidia GTX 780, and beat out both of the AMD cardsthe R9 290X came in third place, at 68fps, and the R9 290 brought up the rear, at 64fps.

The older, but still remarkably taxing, Metro 2033 is a game the AMD Radeon R9 290 family has been winning of late, but the GTX 780 Ti managed to eke out a victory herebarely, at 53fps, compared with 51fps for the AMD R9 290X and 49fps for the AMD R9 290. The Nvidia GTX 780 was well back, at 45fps. The popular game BioShock Infinite was a significant win for the GTX 780 Ti; its score of 112fps swept the AMD R9 290X, which scored 96fps. In Hitman Absolution, the R9 290X still eked out a win with a score of 55fps to the GTX 780 Ti's 53fps. The R9 290 came in third, at 52fps, and the Nvidia GTX 780 landed in fourth place, at 45fps.

In terms of total performance, therefore, we can safely say the GTX 780 Ti is leading once againbut that's not what makes the card compelling. The truth is, at $700, it's only 5- to 10-percent faster than the AMD R9 290, while costing 27 percent more. The AMD cards have a higher maximum fill rate (64 gigapixels per second, compared with the GTX 780 Ti's 44.5 gigapixels per second). Fill rate is key to 4K gaming, and the fact is, the GK110 GPU only has 48 render output units (ROPs) to AMD's 64 ROPs. For 4K gaming, the GTX 780 Ti will have a fight on its hands to prove the superior solution, whereas in 1080p, it's definitely the faster card.

The one advantage that the GTX 780 Ti family has over AMD is noise. There's a definite difference between Nvidia's high-end GPUs and those of AMD, and it comes in the form of dramatically quieter fan speeds and lower operating temperatures. AMD has stated that its cards are certified to run at their 95-degrees-Celsius operating temperature, while Nvidia caps its cards at 83 degrees Celsius. While 95 degrees is hot, cards can be built to run that high, so it's not an intrinsic problembut the fan on the AMD 290X is loud.

We've seen much cooler AMD R9 290-based cards built on water-cooled solutions that would challenge the GTX 780 Ti. For instance, the VisionTek CryoVenom R9 290 is almost as fast as the GTX 780 Ti when overclocked. Still, that would require that users be comfortable with installing a water cooling solutionand many users aren't. There are third-party cooling solutions coming for the AMD R9 290X cards, but it's fair to assume they'll run $30 to $50 more when mounted on OEM cards, and $80 to $100 more when sold as mount kits. If you care about noise and want the quietest card possible, the GTX 780 Ti is going to be best option.

At $600, the GeForce GTX 780 Ti would have been the best choice hands-down, significantly faster than AMD R9 290, and much quieter as well. At $700, its performance difference is only going to be worth it if you demand top performance in 1080p, maximum competitiveness in 4K for future gaming, and you want the quietest card you buy that offers both. In most other situations, the AMD Radeon R9 290 is going to be the better option, and it remains our Editors' Choice for this price segment.

Nvidia GeForce GTX 780 Ti

Nvidia GeForce GTX 780 Ti

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